Police dog thrust onto surrendering driver

Raising his arms in surrender was not enough to save drunk driver Johnnie Williams from the ferocious police dog.

Williams had sparked a police chase after flying through a roadside breath-testing checkpoint in the US city of Wilmington, North Carolina, on Halloween night.

The chase ended when officer Stafford Brister used his cruiser to T-bone the car Williams was driving.

Williams gestured his surrender but, as the footage shows, that did not stop the policeman from picking up his trained police dog and thrusting it through the driver's window and onto the lap of the drunk driver.

He required stitches on his face and shoulders as the dog, possibly a Rottweiler mix, mauled Williams for about 30 seconds.

Other police officers had to break open the car's passenger side window and yank open the locked door before they could pull the dog off Williams.

Brister was placed on paid leave for his actions and a jury was convened to consider whether to charge the policeman with one count of assault.

A separate grand jury was not so lenient with Williams, however. He faces a few charges including "assault with a deadly weapon on a government official, being a habitual felon and traffic violations."